Technical Field
Embodiments described herein are related to supply voltage droop detection and, more particularly, to detecting an envelope of the supply voltage magnitude over time.
Description of the Related Art
Integrated circuits present a load to the power management units that generate the supply voltages for the integrated circuits. The power management units have maximum currents that they can source while still keeping a relatively steady voltage supplied to the integrated circuit. In some cases, the integrated circuit can attempt to draw more current than the power management unit can supply, which leads to droop in the power supply voltage. Similarly, instantaneous changes in demand can occur faster than the power management unit can react to the changes, causing transient droops in the power supply voltage. If the droop is too large in magnitude, the integrated circuit may experience erroneous operation. The power supply voltage is also referred to more succinctly herein as the “supply voltage.”
Generally, systems including integrated circuits have monitored the supply voltage magnitude for dropping below a particular threshold level, and attempt to throttle the integrated circuit or take other corrective action to prevent error when the drop is detected. If the threshold is set too close to the actual supply voltage magnitude, the corrective action can be triggered too frequently and performance can suffer. If the threshold is set too far from the actual supply voltage magnitude, the corrective action often must be severe to ensure that error does not occur.